Covariant R ξ gauge fixing is notoriously difficult for large lattice volumes, large ξ and small N c . We thoroughly test different convergence techniques, which allows the gauge fixing of lattice configurations with a total volume of (3.25 fm) 4 , up to ξ = 0.5. We are able to study the gluon propagator in the infrared region and its dependence on the gauge fixing parameter ξ . As expected, the longitudinal gluon dressing functions stay constant at their tree-level value ξ . Similar to the Landau gauge, the transverse R ξ gauge gluon propagators saturate at a non-vanishing value in the deep infrared for all values of ξ studied. We compare with very recent continuum studies and perform a simple analysis of the found saturation with a dynamically generated effective gluon mass.